Core i7-8700K Review: Coffee Lake Brews A Great Gaming CPU

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DTP, Office, Multimedia & Compression Performance

Although we usually don’t run our application benchmarks on overclocked processors, we're including the two Coffee Lake CPUs at stock and overclocked frequencies this time, since we wanted to know how Intel's architecture scales in different scenarios.

To be fair, we also added a (reasonably) overclocked AMD Ryzen 7 1800X to our results. This makes for an interesting comparison. We also included Intel’s Core i7-7800X, which represents another 6C/12T contender from Intel using its X299 platform. Skylake-X didn't seem to add anything in our gaming benchmarks; can it beat Coffee Lake in productivity applications?

DTP & Presentation

Adobe’s Creative Cloud gives us a look at real-world single- and multi-core performance. As such, it beats synthetic benchmarks as a productivity test.

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After Effects CC is a classic when it comes to parallelized tasks, with the number of cores easily being more important than frequency. Core i7-8700K dominates in this one, of course.

Otherwise, in lightly-threaded benchmarks, Coffee Lake only beats its competition thanks to its slightly higher clock rate.

Strangely, Intel’s Core i5-7600K reliably beats the stock Core i7 CPUs in Adobe’s InDesign CC. We have no idea why this might be the case.

Encoding & Multimedia

Intel’s new Core i7-8700K dominates our default HandBrake benchmarks. The Core i7-7800X can’t compete.

The finishing order shifts around a bit under our more demanding high-quality test. Due to its higher core count, AMD’s Ryzen 7 1800X finishes ahead of Core i7-8700K, which, in turn, beats the Skylake-X-based Core i7-7800X.

Compression & Decompression

Core i7-8700K’s six cores, coupled with high clock rates, allow Coffee Lake to leave its competition in the dust. Again, the Core i7-7800X doesn’t even come close.

Things don’t get any better for the competition once it's compared to Core i7-8700K in our decompression metric. Core i7-7800X fares especially badly, demonstrating that the X299 platform isn't universally better just because it's more expensive.


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Paul Alcorn
Paul Alcorn
Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech

Paul Alcorn is the Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.

160 Comments Comment from the forums
  • cknobman
    Looks like it might be time for AMD to lower prices.

    AMD really has shaken Intel up, never would I have dreamed (before this year) I'd see Intels best gaming cpu (especially a K model) release at $360.
    Reply
  • AgentLozen
    AMD's price per core is still very strong. It struggles in gaming at 1080p but Tomshardware didn't provide data in 1440p or 4K.

    I'm not yet convinced that AMD is in trouble.
    Reply
  • saunupe1911
    Hmmm is it worth a skylake 6700K that's stable at 4.6 Overclock to upgrade? Probably not. I wouldn't mind 6 cores though. I wonder how many will hit 5.0!
    Reply
  • jroc188
    8700k is $480ca got the R5 1600 for $255ca and mobo for $120ca. $375 all together and more then happy with the gaming results. But the 8700k dose look sweet on the benchmarks. AMD with a price drop will still sell well
    Reply
  • shrapnel_indie
    Of course, while Intel's accelerated Coffee Lake-S launch makes it look today's unveiling is a direct response to heated competition, in reality, the long incubation period for new processors means it’s more likely the result of 10nm manufacturing delays.

    Ummm... Yeah, the design may have been kicking around, and ready to go before Ryzen, but when it is released months earlier than scheduled.... Saying that it wasn't a response to Ryzen seems more like misinformation more than pure fact. Yeah, I don't doubt 10nm manufacturing delays played a part in the previous release date, but Ryzen forced its release a little earlier than planned.
    Reply
  • bloodroses
    To AMD fanbois who claimed that Intel was toast and couldn't respond to Ryzen's release, here's Intel's Mic drop. *thud*

    For the rest of us consumers, this is great news for continued strong competition at reduced prices from both companies. :)
    Reply
  • massacre.h4te
    Nearly 90 degrees Celsius when overclocked gaming on an AiO. Prettttttty toasty!
    Reply
  • saunupe1911
    20241606 said:
    To AMD fanbois who claimed that Intel was toast and couldn't respond to Ryzen's release, here's Intel's Mic drop. *thud*

    For the rest of us consumers, this is great news for continued strong competition at reduced prices from both companies. :)

    Z370 motherboards are expensive though...sheesh. And you gotta reach out to liquid cooling companies for attachments for mounting to this socket. Canon Lake may be out before you can get everything situated for a nice 8700k upgrade lmao.
    Reply
  • FormatC
    20241615 said:
    Nearly 90 degrees Celsius when overclocked gaming on an AiO. Prettttttty toasty!
    The reason is simple:
    The built-in frying fat between IHS and die :)
    Reply
  • LilDog1291
    20241606 said:
    To AMD fanbois who claimed that Intel was toast and couldn't respond to Ryzen's release, here's Intel's Mic drop. *thud*

    For the rest of us consumers, this is great news for continued strong competition at reduced prices from both companies. :)

    I don't know if I would call 90C+ on a chiller cooler (granted its a high overclock but the 7700k had the same problem) a mic drop but it is definitely a step in the right direction. If they can get their temperatures under control in the next generation they will win my vote back.
    Reply